Catholic Metanarrative: September 2008

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Prostitutes Will Enter the Kingdom Before You: Gospel Commentary for 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for this Sunday are Ezekiel 18:25-28; Philippians 2:1-11; Matthew 21:28-32.

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ROME, SEPT. 26, 2008 (Zenit.org).- "Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people: 'What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, "Son, go out and work in the vineyard today." He said in reply, "I will not," but afterward changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, "Yes, sir," but did not go. Which of the two did his father's will?' They answered, 'The first.'"

The son who says "yes" and does "no" represents those who knew God and followed his law to a certain extent but did not accept Christ, who was "the fulfillment of the law." The son who says "no" and does "yes" represents those who once lived outside the law and will of God, but then, with Christ, thought again and welcomed the Gospel.

From this Jesus draws the following conclusion before the chief priests and elders: "Truly, I say to you, even the publicans and prostitutes will enter the Kingdom of God before you."

No saying of Christ has been more manipulated than this. Some have ended up creating a kind of evangelical aura about prostitutes, idealizing them and opposing them to those with good reputations, who are all regarded without distinction as hypocritical scribes and Pharisees. Literature is full of "good" prostitutes. Just think of Verdi's "La Traviata" or the meek Sonya of Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"!

But this is a terrible misunderstanding. Jesus is talking about a limited case, as it were. "Even" the prostitutes, he wants to say, are going to enter the Kingdom of God before you. Prostitution is seen in all its seriousness and taken as a term of comparison to point out the gravity of the sin of those who stubbornly reject the truth.

We do not see that, moreover, idealizing the category of prostitute, we also idealize that of publican, which is a category that always accompanies it in the Gospel. The publicans, who were employees of the Roman tax collection agencies, participated in the unjust practices of these agencies. If Jesus links prostitutes and publicans together, he does not do this without a reason; they have both made money the most important thing in life.

It would be tragic if such passages from the Gospel made Christians less attentive to combating the degrading phenomenon of prostitution, which today has assumed alarming proportions in our cities. Jesus had too much respect for women to not suffer beforehand for that which she will become when she is reduced to this state. What he appreciates in the prostitute is not her way of life, but her capacity to change and to put her ability to love in the service of the good. Mary Magdalene, who converted and followed Jesus all the way to the cross, is an example of this (supposing that she was a prostitute).

What Jesus intends to teach with his words here he clearly says at the end: The publicans and prostitutes converted with John the Baptist's preaching; the chief priests and the elders did not. The Gospel, therefore, does not direct us to moralistic campaigns against prostitutes, but neither does it allow us to joke about it, as if it were nothing.

In the new form under which prostitution presents itself today, we see that it is now able to make a person a significant amount of money and do so without involving them in the terrible dangers to which the poor women of previous times, who were condemned to the streets, were subjected. This form consists in selling one's body safely through cameras. What a woman does when she loans herself to pornography and certain excessive forms of advertisement is to sell her body to the eyes if not to contact. This is certainly prostitution, and it is worse than traditional prostitution, because it is publicly imposed and does not respect people's freedom and sentiments.

But having denounced these things as we must, we would betray the spirit of the Gospel if we did not also speak of the hope that these words of Christ offer to women, who, on account of various circumstances (often out of desperation), have found themselves on the street, for the most part victims of unscrupulous exploitation. The Gospel is "gospel," that is, "glad tidings," news of ransom, of hope, even for prostitutes. Indeed, perhaps it is for them first of all. This is how Jesus wanted it.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Article: Paul, Apostle of Christ Jesus

PAUL THIGPEN

Who was this man who turned the world upside down?

The Year of St. Paul has arrived. During the summer of 2007 Pope Benedict XVI announced that the Church would observe a celebration in honor of St. Paul the Apostle, from June 28, 2008, to June 29, 2009.

That announcement has prompted Catholics everywhere to ask once again: Just who was this man who "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6, RSV) with the Gospel?

For the beginning of an answer to that question, here's a brief biography of the remarkable apostle some have called "the second founder of Christianity."

Early Life

Scripture offers invaluable primary historical sources for Paul's life: his letters and the Acts of the Apostles. In addition, we have several early traditions about him outside of Scripture.

Paul was probably born between the years A.D. 5 and 10, just a few years after Jesus. (All the dates associated with his life are approximate and debated by scholars.) His parents were strictly observant Jews living in the city of Tarsus, the prosperous capital of Cilicia, a province of the Roman Empire in what is now Turkey.

Paul was not just a resident but a citizen of Tarsus, which suggests that his family was wealthy. He also claimed Roman citizenship by birth, a status that carried considerable prestige.

His Jewish name was "Saul"; "Paul" was a well-known Roman family name. This arrangement was common for Jews in this period, especially outside Palestine, who often had two names, one Greek or Roman and the other Semitic.

The young Paul obviously received a fine education. He could write Greek well and probably knew Hebrew or Aramaic (Jesus' native language) as well. His writing and preaching demonstrated admirable rhetorical skills.

In his adolescence Paul studied the Jewish Scriptures under the famous Jewish rabbi Gamaliel I the Elder of Jerusalem. In time, this avid student came to know the sacred texts well enough to quote extensively from them by memory, including the deuterocanonical books.

Paul also had at least a passing acquaintance with other religions of his day. On at least one occasion he quoted from pagan religious texts while preaching.

In addition, he knew the useful trade of tent-making, which helped support him during his missionary journeys.

The apostle once declared that he was "a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees" (Acts 23:6). In one of his letters he recalled of his youth: "I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers" (Gal 1:14, RSV).

It was apparently this religious zealotry that led the young man to persecute Christians, whom he must have viewed as a new and dangerous cult, threatening the Pharisaic traditions he so passionately embraced.

Paul's Conversion

The Acts of the Apostles tells us that soon after Jesus' ascension into heaven and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, the Church met with hostility, as had Our Lord himself.

We first encounter Paul in this account as an associate of those who stoned to death St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr. After Stephen's death, Paul "was trying to destroy the church; entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment" (Acts 8:3).

The young man's anger toward Christians was ferocious:

"Breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord, [he] went to the high priest and asked for letters to the synagogue in Damascus, that, if he should find any men or women who belonged to the Way, he might bring them back to Jerusalem in chains" (Acts 9:1-2).

But God had other plans for Paul. On the road to Damascus, the Risen Christ himself showed up, in an appearance so powerful that it knocked Paul to the ground and blinded him.

Paul was confronted with the reality that the Man of Nazareth who had been crucified truly was raised from the dead, as His followers claimed. This Man, he came to realize, was in fact the divine Son of God in the flesh, the Christ (or Messiah) long promised to His people. In opposing the Church, Paul had been opposing the God he had wanted to serve.

"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," the Lord told him. Then He gave the trembling man instructions about how he was to begin the radically new life that lay ahead for him.

Paul had become a follower of Christ, called to a new mission to preach the Gospel of his new Lord to the world.

Arriving at Damascus, the new "apostle of Christ Jesus" (1 Cor 1:1) obeyed the Lord's instructions, was healed miraculously of his blindness and was baptized. Then he received his first instructions about the Christian life from other believers.

As passionate as ever about what he believed, Paul began sharing his new faith right away in the local synagogues of Damascus, where Jewish people gathered to worship.

A Man on the Move

We can only imagine the uproar that resulted when the young Pharisee began "preaching the faith he once tried to destroy" (Gal 1:23). Before long, the Jewish religious leaders opposed to the Christian movement were seeking to kill Paul.

The persecutor had become the persecuted. So he fled to Arabia (or Nabatea) for awhile. Eventually, he returned to Damascus, but he had to flee once more, barely escaping his enemies by being lowered secretly in a basket through the city wall.

This time Paul went back to Jerusalem to get acquainted with the apostles, to be taught by them and to seek their recognition of his own vocation. He stayed awhile with St. Peter and continued preaching. Then, once again facing dangerous opposition, he withdrew into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, his home province.

We don't know for sure the details of this period, sometimes called the "unknown years" of Paul's life. But we do know that, eventually, the apostle ended up in Antioch, the great metropolis of Syria where the numerous local followers of Jesus were first called "Christians." There he began a decade of remarkable and successful missionary journeys throughout that part of the world.

Three Missionary Journeys

Paul's extensive travels are traditionally clustered by historians into what they call his "three missionary journeys."

In the first, he went to the island of Cyprus, several cities in Asia Minor, back to Antioch, then to Jerusalem and Antioch again. Typically, in each place he preached first in the local Jewish synagogue, then to the Gentiles of the area.

In his second journey, Paul returned to the sites in Asia Minor where he had preached before to check up on the new Christian communities he had established. This strategy of planting new local churches, moving on to preach in other cities and then following up again (through visits or letters) became the pattern for his ministry.

Next, going north to preach in Galatia and Phrygia, Paul crossed over into Europe for the first time, preaching in Macedonia and the Greek cities of Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens and Corinth. Eventually, Paul preached in the great city of Ephesus, the most important Roman city in Asia Minor.

Though he made plans to preach in Spain, we don't know for sure whether he ever made it that far west.

Pauline Epistles

The names of Paul's biblical epistles reflect some of the locales we've noted: 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians. These letters provided the young churches he had founded with instruction, correction, inspiration and encouragement. Paul also wrote the biblical letter to the Romans, though the church there was not one he himself had planted.

In addition, some of the biblical epistles of Paul were written to individuals, such as 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon. (Scholars have debated whether some of the letters attributed to him might, in fact, have been written by another author using his name. We assume here that the biblical books bearing his name are his work, in keeping with the Church's ancient tradition.)

Paul wrote more books of the Bible than any other author. Not surprisingly, then, his writing came to have tremendous influence on the Church, not only in his day but in every succeeding generation that has heard, read and meditated on the Scriptures he penned.

Final Journeys

After an extended stay in Ephesus, the apostle went to several more cities before heading back to Jerusalem at last. By that time, he had endured remarkable suffering for the sake of his mission. In addition to multiple imprisonments, he survived numerous other challenges and adversities.

"Five times," he told the Christians at Corinth, "at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers, in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure" (2 Cor 11:24-27).

In Jerusalem Paul's preaching once again stirred up trouble from the enemies of the Church. He was arrested, and over a period of two years in prison, he was brought before a Jewish court, a Jewish puppet king and two successive Roman governors. In the end he was shipped off to Rome for trial there.The journey by sea to the imperial capital was a nightmare, with storms, a shipwreck and a winter spent stranded at Malta. Once in Rome, Paul remained there for two years under house arrest, though he had the liberty to preach and to teach those who came to visit him.

Missionary and Martyr

Scripture doesn't tell us about St. Paul's death. But an ancient and reliable tradition reports that he was martyred under the Roman emperor Nero, probably sometime after the summer of the year 64 -- perhaps in the same persecution of Christians when St. Peter was crucified. Paul was beheaded and then buried on the Via Ostiensis at a place now marked by the basilica of St. Paul-outside-the-Walls (of Rome).

Down through the ages, the traditional image of St. Paul has shown him holding an open book of Scripture and a sword. These symbols remind us not only of his courageous labors in planting churches, but also his invaluable role in providing the Church with, as he once called it, "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph 6:17).

In this Year of St. Paul, we do well to remember him with gratitude, and to take up that "sword" once more for the spiritual battle that still rages.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Paul Thigpen. "Paul, Apostle of Christ Jesus." Our Sunday Visitor.

Reprinted with permission of the author, Paul Thigpen.

THE AUTHOR

Dr. Paul Thigpen is a Professor of Sacred Theology and Assistant to the President at Southern Catholic College in Dawsonville, Georgia. He also serves as editor of The Catholic Answer, a national bimonthly magazine that answers questions about the Catholic faith. Dr. Thigpen earned a B.A. in Religious Studies from Yale University (1977) and an M.A. (1993) and Ph.D. (1995) in Historical Theology from Emory University, where he was awarded the George W. Woodruff Fellowship. A best-selling author and award-winning journalist, Dr. Thigpen has published thirty-five books and more than five hundred journal and magazine articles in more than forty religious and secular periodicals for both scholarly and popular audiences. Among his books are: My Visit to Hell, Last Words of Catholic Saints And Sinners, Stars And Strays: Final Thoughts of Catholic Saints and Sinners, Blood of the Martyrs, Seed of the Church: Stories of Catholics Who Died for Their Faith, The Saints' Guide to Making Peace With God, Yourself, and Others, Jesus, We Adore You: Prayers Before the Blessed Sacrament, Restless Till We Rest in You: 60 Reflections from the Writings of St. Augustine, and Questions Catholics Are Asked: Are You Saved?

Dr. Thigpen was recently appointed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as a lay representative on their National Advisory Council. He also serves the Church as an historian, apologist, evangelist, and catechist in a number of settings, speaking frequently at conferences, seminars, parish missions, and scholarly gatherings in the United States and abroad.

Article: 'Human rights' vs. basic freedoms

FATHER RAYMOND J. DE SOUZA

A timely intervention has prevented the cancer from metastasizing, but aggressive treatment is still needed.

The diagnosis is by now well known: From their privileged place within the body politic, Canada's various human rights commissions have gone from legitimately fighting discrimination to attacking Canadian liberties.

There was a real danger of metastasis, as the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) attempted to spread its corruption to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO). The timely intervention came from the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) and other public voices. The patient, though -- the Canadian public -- is still infected with human rights commissions that are compromising our most fundamental liberties, including freedom of conscience, of religion, of speech and of the press.

The issue was physicians' natural right to refuse to perform services they consider professionally unwise, morally unsound or religiously illicit. Over the summer, the CPSO proposed new policies that would have circumscribed those rights at the urging of the OHRC.

Doctors and other health care professionals, being free citizens and responsible professionals, have never been forced to violate their conscience. But we learned long ago that the OHRC doesn't much care for fundamental freedoms. Having pronounced its desire earlier this year to convict Maclean's magazine for publishing a 2006 excerpt from a Mark Steyn book that is critical of radical Islam, the OHRC cast its empire-building gaze toward the medical profession.

The OHRC, possessing investigative, judicial and penal powers, already is more than capable of grinding up a doctor who, say, thinks it unwise to prescribe birth control pills to a young teenage girl (a trifecta -- gender, age and marital status discrimination!). Given the examples it used in its submission to the CPSO, the OHRC is looking forward to prosecuting doctors who might recommend psychiatric consultation for a "transgendered" patient who, in the learned medical opinion of the commission, does not require it. And it takes little imagination to figure out what OHRC bureaucrats are lusting after more than anything else: penalizing a doctor for not facilitating an abortion.

In the OHRC's world, the doctor disappears entirely as a moral actor and accredited professional, reduced simply to an unthinking agent of the patient's wishes. One might as well throw out the Hippocratic Oath and simply command doctors to do whatever they are told -- not by a medical body, but by a human rights commission.

The OHRC invited the CPSO to pile on, recommending that the accrediting body for Ontario physicians threaten doctors with professional-misconduct penalties for running afoul of the OHRC. And shockingly enough, the CPSO was ready to go along with it.

The OMA was blunt: "It should never be professional misconduct for an Ontario physician to act in accordance with his or her religious beliefs."

Facing fierce opposition, the CPSO yesterday backed down substantially, deleting the proposals that most clearly violated doctors' conscience rights. Some of the replacement language is worryingly ambiguous, but for the most part the cancer of the OHRC has not spread into the professional college.

Yet the whole episode shows how diseased the human-rights situation is in Canada. A self-respecting, confident CPSO would have slapped down the OHRC for seeking to meddle in professional standards, and told it in no uncertain terms that doctors' human rights were not going to be abrogated by anyone, even the OHRC.

It was left to the OMA to slap down the CPSO -- the doctors' professional association taking the accrediting college to the public woodshed. The OMA was blunt: "It should never be professional misconduct for an Ontario physician to act in accordance with his or her religious beliefs." And in case the CPSO didn't get it, the OMA advised that the policy proposal be dropped outright -- not amended, not redrafted, not referred for further discussion, but simply rejected.

Good for the OMA for not advocating some middle way between a healthy recognition of human rights and the diseased approach of the OHRC. But more aggressive confrontation of the OHRC's overreaching is necessary. It is not enough just to prevent the cancer from spreading, which is what was achieved yesterday. It needs to be eliminated.

Professional groups such as the OMA -- those representing writers and clergy, for example -- have been sounding the alarm on the human rights commissions for some time now. There needs to be a corresponding sense of urgency from Canadian governments, whose statutes sustain human rights commissions. Provincial ministers of justice have been largely silent. The federal minister of justice, Robert Nicholson, a good man who surely knows better, has been disconcertingly reserved in regard to the abuses taking place on his watch. The federal government's irresponsibly lackadaisical approach sends signals to otherwise respectable bodies, like the CPSO, that the OHRC and similar bodies are not to be challenged.

That needs to change -- otherwise we shall eventually be whistling past the graveyard of Canadian liberty.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Father Raymond J. de Souza. "'Human rights' vs. basic freedoms." National Post, (Canada) September 19, 2008.

Reprinted with permission of the National Post and Fr. de Souza.

THE AUTHOR

Father Raymond J. de Souza is chaplain to Newman House, the Roman Catholic mission at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. Father de Souza's web site is here. Father de Souza is on the advisory board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Article: The Seven Deadlies Revisited, Part One: Envy

MARY EBERSTADT

I was sitting in an unfamiliar church somewhere in Connecticut last weekend, watching one of our teenagers fidget throughout the homily.

Envy by Giotto
1302-1305

I couldn't blame her. The sermon was poor. It was pitched unseemly low, and meandered mightily. And with every long and winding paragraph, every phrase unconnected to the day's readings or anything else, my exasperation also climbed. Why can't our homilies have more meat in them? I wondered as the thing went on. Why don't we hear about something interesting from the pulpit once in a while -- like, say, the seven deadly sins?

As often happens, my peevishness boomeranged back in the dreaded words: do it yourself. And following that inspiration -- unwanted inspiration, to be sure, but writers are lazy and take it wherever we can get it -- today's column begins a series. In it, we'll briefly revisit each of the seven deadly sins -- hereinafter, the "Deadlies" for short -- in light of some current event or pulse of the Zeitgeist.

Let's start arbitrarily with the one that's occupying my own mind this week: Envy. Recently, a prominent friend of ours fell from public grace. Like numerous other financial leaders these past few weeks, he lost his executive position in what looks to be an increasingly troubled global market. I don't know much about business, or whether he was sacked for good reason or bad; that call, as one of our candidates likes to say, is beyond my pay grade.

What I know, and what readers might want to reflect on too, is the generic media ritual that attends the fall of any prominent person these days, deserved or not: i.e., the envy-driven, lip-smacking, finger-pointing, slobbering public feeding frenzy that people of power and influence have to look forward to should their hold on those commodities ever loosen. A rich man! With a big house! Who goes to a country club! Suddenly, everything about the lives of such people becomes public fodder, and the envy of it just can't be missed. Suddenly, the woodwork crawls with wannabe pundits taking potshots and lobbing smears -- including people who were holding doors and fetching coffee and otherwise fawning and flattering and enjoying the limelight of these alpha guys right up till the day before yesterday.

Watching this public spectacle with the eyes of a friend rather than those of a voyeur makes one thing marvelously clear. Envy, a capital sin, runs riot in America -- and with no penalty. Never mind the virtues that catapulted anyone to such heights in the first place, or the good works for which many are known. You won't be hearing about any of that, because the Envy tantrum is infinitely more gratifying to our baser selves.

Admittedly, envy is not the showiest of the Deadly Sins. It doesn't fly through the air like lust, say, or bare its fangs in public like anger. No, this little viper is content to hide coiled at the bottom of your throat -- arching just enough from time to time to choke a little, and remind you who's really in charge.

Such are the current rules of Envy, American-style, and they bear plenty more inspection than we Christians usually give them. The world loves a fall from higher up the ladder for the reasons Tom Wolfe painted in his Bonfire of the Vanities: because many people lower down envy what those higher-ups have. It loves a fall for the same reason that Melville has Claggart rubbing his hands and bringing down Billy Budd: not because Claggart lacks a conscience, exactly, but because his conscience is "the lawyer to his will." And so are our consciences lawyers today, when we envy and rejoice in the misfortunes of the envied -- all without so much as a twinge of conscience over our coveting.

Such insidiousness is Envy's calling card. Maybe that's why fully two commandments warn against covetousness -- no other Deadly gets as many -- and why the Nazarene Himself had a thing or two or twenty to say about it. Also unlike the other Deadlies, this one wears two faces rather than one. Dante nicely captures the dual nature of Envy in the Purgatorio, sewing the eyes of the envious shut with wire -- fitting punishment both for resenting the good fortunes of others, and for rejoicing in seeing such people brought down.

Fellow Christians: So what if your neighbor is rich? So what if he or she went to a better school than you did, has a cuter husband or wife, is admired by more people, drives a car snazzier than yours? In our theology, to be perfectly bookish and technical about it, the rest of us just aren't supposed to give a damn. Think about that the next time someone rich denounces someone who's even richer on TV, or as a camera chases someone else's kids down the street to their nice school.

You may object that envy is simply human nature, but that telling formulation misses the religious mark. All the Deadlies have their roots in human nature; since when are Christians told to rest our laurels there? The answer is that we aren't. Thus endeth today's lesson.

And now let's all look in the mirror for that beam.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Mary Eberstadt. "The Seven Deadlies Revisited, Part One: Envy." The Catholic Thing (September 18, 2008).

The Catholic thing -- the concrete historical reality of Catholicism -- is the richest cultural tradition in the world. That is the deep background to The Catholic Thing which bring you an original column every day that provides fresh and penetrating insight into the current situation along with other commentary, news, analysis, and -- yes -- even humor. Our writers include some of the most seasoned and insightful Catholic minds in America: Michael Novak, Ralph McInerny, Hadley Arkes, Michael Uhlmann, Mary Eberstadt, Austin Ruse, George Marlin, William Saunders, and many others.

THE AUTHOR

Mary Tedeschi Eberstadt is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and consulting editor to Policy Review. She is the author of Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs and Other Parent Substitutes and the editor of Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys.

Eberstadt focuses on issues on American society, culture, and philosophy. She has written widely for various magazines and newspapers, including Policy Review, the Weekly Standard, First Things, American Conservative, the American Spectator, Los Angeles Times, London Times, Newark Star-Ledger, and the Wall Street Journal. Between 1998 and 1990, she was executive editor of the National Interest magazine. From 1985 to 1987, she was a member of the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. State Department, a speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and a special assistant to Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. She was also managing editor at the Public Interest. A four-year Telluride Scholar at Cornell University, Eberstadt graduated magna cum laude in 1983. She is an associate member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

Article: Taking the Time to Act Like Christians

DEAL HUDSON

What I witnessed that day was one of the most remarkable moments of Christian reconciliation I am likely to ever see.

A few days ago I was asked to speak to a men's group in Atlanta about Catholics in politics. As part of my presentation, I talked about the possibility of greater Catholic and Evangelical cooperation. To illustrate my point, I told the story about the reconciliation earlier this year between Pastor John Hagee and Catholic League President Bill Donohue.

I had never spoken in depth about the April meeting at Donohue's office and was surprised to find myself deeply moved in the telling of it. Perhaps it was recalling the story in the midst of an increasingly bitter political season that gave it a new significance; whatever it was, I realized that what happened that day in New York was unique and that I wanted to revisit it.

(Since McCain eventually repudiated Hagee's endorsement, I don't think I can be accused of partisanship for telling the story.)

When Sen. John McCain accepted the minister's public endorsement in late February, Donohue asked McCain to reject it, as he had been aware of what he considered anti-Catholicism in Hagee's writing for several years. The McCain campaign's response did not satisfy Donohue. For seven straight days, Donohue issued press releases pressuring the McCain campaign to renounce Hagee. The story was picked up by the national media. By the time McCain made a statement rejecting Hagee's anti-Catholicism, John Hagee's reputation was in tatters.

In the middle of the controversy, I received a call from Ralph Reed, who was growing concerned about the impact of Donohue's charges against his friend Hagee. "John Hagee is a good man," he told me. "I want you to talk to John and then talk to Bill." As I remember that initial phone call, I am struck by Reed's ability to imagine the possibility of reconciliation between the two men. When I agreed to make the call, I didn't think there was any chance for a truce -- there was just too much heat.

I left a message on Hagee's cell phone and received an immediate call back. Having grown up a Southern Baptist in Texas, the voice I heard through the phone was familiar to me. I told him I wanted to meet with him to discuss why he was being called anti-Catholic. Hagee said he was very anxious to meet because he did not consider himself anti-Catholic, and the public attacks were taking a toll on his family and his church. I This man was actually suffering -- I could hear it -- and I was suddenly glad Reed had asked me to call him.

I have already written about our subsequent meeting on March 28 in New York City. After three hours of conversation, I came to the conclusion that Hagee was not actually anti-Catholic but that there were significant parts of Catholic history -- especially regarding the Jews -- he was not familiar with. I was also satisfied that his interpretation of the Book of Revelation was not aimed at the Catholic Church.

Two weeks later, I invited a dozen Catholic leaders in Washington to have lunch with Hagee to go over the same issues he and I had discussed in New York. The success of that get-together led me to call Donohue and suggest his own meeting with Hagee. Donohue -- always careful -- asked for something in writing from Hagee that would put the controversy to rest. Hagee sent a letter to him that did just that, and the Catholic League issued a press release saying the "matter is settled."

Then I asked Donohue if he would meet with Hagee in his office. "Of course," he said, without hesitation.

Hagee is a warm man, but the only man I know who might be even friendlier is Bill Donohue. Just as Hagee's Texas accent was heard in the doorway of the office, a booming Brooklyn voice was heard from the depths of the office, "I hear a Southern accent; it must be Pastor John Hagee. Welcome!"

I was a little bit anxious. Here were two men: one who had been called a bigot for weeks in the national media, the other who had done a lot of that calling, and they were about to meet. That Hagee wanted to meet the man who had affected his life so significantly impressed me. And that Donohue was willing to meet with the man who represented everything that the Catholic League opposes was just as admirable.

Pastor Hagee and his wife Diana were visibly nervous when I took them up the freight elevator of Donohue's office building (we wanted to avoid the press). They had no idea what to expect when they entered the offices of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Hagee is a warm man, but the only man I know who might be even friendlier is Bill Donohue. Just as Hagee's Texas accent was heard in the doorway of the office, a booming Brooklyn voice was heard from the depths of the office, "I hear a Southern accent; it must be Pastor John Hagee. Welcome!"

I remember the look on the faces of the Hagees and their associate David Brog as they met Donohue and every member of his staff. Their smiles and warmth both stunned and delighted the Hagees. I thought to myself at the time, "This is a kind of miracle."

When the reporters called later to ask about the meeting, they wanted to know if it had been arranged to help the McCain campaign. When I responded that it was arranged for personal reasons and out of a concern for relations between Catholics and Evangelicals, I met with skepticism. The media either assumes that every event has a political cause, or that there's no story unless it is political. The fact is, what I witnessed that day was one of the most remarkable moments of Christian reconciliation I am likely to ever see. There was nothing political or partisan about it.

John Hagee himself understood this better than I did. Two months later, he invited Donohue and me to his Christians United for Israel dinner in Washington, D.C. Before asking us to stand, he chuckled as he reminded his 4,600 dinner guests at the Washington Convention Center that he had "been in the news lately." Hagee thanked us publicly for all that we had taught him about the Catholic Church in the previous weeks. He then added that the three of us had resolved our differences by doing something that the media did not understand -- "we acted like Christians." As we stood, Hagee's supporters stood with us. Donohue and I looked at each other; we were as stunned as the Hagees had been in New York City.

This is a lesson worth remembering in the midst of a testy political season. I am grateful to Ralph Reed for believing it possible, and to Bill Donohue and Pastor John Hagee for being witnesses to a friendship in Christ that can overcome the most bitter differences.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Deal W. Hudson. "Taking the Time to Act Like Christians." Inside Catholic (September 11, 2008).

Reprinted with permission of InsideCatholic.com. The mission of InsideCatholic.com is to be a voice for authentic Catholicism in the public square.

THE AUTHOR

Deal W. Hudson is the director of the Morley Institute for Church & Culture, and is the former publisher and editor of Crisis Magazine, a Catholic monthly published in Washington, DC. He is the author of seven books: Onward Christian Soldiers: The Growing Political Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States; Understanding Maritain: Philosopher and Friend; The Future of Thomism; Sigrid Undset On Saints and Sinners; Happiness and the Limits of Satisfaction and his autobiography, An American Conversion.

Article: Teach Manners

THOMAS LICKONA

Manners are minor morals. They are the everyday ways we respect other people and facilitate social relations. They make up the moral fabric of our shared lives. They need to be taught.

Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in great measure, the laws depend. Manners are what vex or smooth, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us . . . . According to their quality, they aid morals, or they destroy them.

-- Edmund Burke, British Statesman

The people who really know your character are waiters and clerks.

-- Katherine Pipin

In April 2002 The Public Agenda published a survey that struck a national nerve: Aggravating Circumstances: A Status Report on Rudeness in America (www.publicagenda.org). Based on interviews with 2,013 U.S. adults, the report included these findings:

Nearly 60% of Americans say they often encounter reckless and aggressive drivers on the road.
Almost half say they are of ten subjected to loud and annoying phone conversations.
Almost half say bad service has driven them out of a store in the past year.
Three-quarters say they often see customers treating salespeople rudely.
79% say that "the lack of respect and courte sy should be regarded as a serious national problem."

Commented Public Agenda's president, Deborah Wadsworth: "Lack of manners for Americans is not about whether you confuse the salad fork with the dinner fork. It's about the daily assault of selfish, inconsiderate behavior on the highways, in the office, in stores, and in myriad other places . . . ."

"In the long decline of the civilized West," observes one social historian, "there has been nothing so grating as the gradual disappearance of manners."

Manners are minor morals. They are the everyday ways we respect other people and facilitate social relations. They make up the moral fabric of our shared lives.

Saying please when we'd like something, thanking people (waitresses and clerks, for example) when they do us a service, holding a door for the person behind us, not talking in movie theaters, turning off our cell phones when we're in a group setting, covering our mouth when we yawn or cough, using language that doesn't offend -- all these are small but meaningful ways of trying to make life a little more pleasant for the people around us.

If we fail to teach these everyday habits of courtesy and consideration to our children, we will not prepare them to be socially competent and likeable people. When society in general fails to teach manners to the young, it coarsens human relations and paves the way for the gross violations of civility that are ever more common. One example of the latter: Funeral directors and police, especially in metropolitan areas, increasingly report blatant disrespect for funeral processions. One Virginia funeral director says drivers regularly cut off his hearse and often give him an obscene gesture as they go by.

What can we do in our classrooms and schools to restore the habits of civilized conduct known as good manners?

1. Get kids to think about why matters matter

One year, Hal Urban put up a sign in his high school classroom: "No one ever went wrong by being polite." He had always enjoyed a good rapport with his students, who were college-bound and typically from affluent families. But he was troubled by what he saw as a decline of basic courtesy. He decided to hit this issue head-on by devoting the first class of the new school year to a discussion of manners.

He began by making two points:

In my experience, most people are capable of courtesy when they know clearly what is expected of them. Moreover, the classroom is a more positive place when everyone treats everyone else with courtesy and consideration.

He then distributed a handout titled, "Whatever Happened to Good Manners?" At the top was a quote from George Bernard Shaw: "Without good manners, human society becomes intolerable." Below that, under the heading "How Things Were Different Not Too Many Years Ago," were ten changes he'd seen in student behavior over his 20-plus years of high school teaching. He walked his class through these observations. For example:

Students rarely came late to class. When they did, they apologized. Today many come late. Only rarely does one apologize.
Students didn't get up, walk across the room, throw something in the wastebasket, then walk back across the room while the teacher is talking. Today this is done often, and nothing is thought about it.
Students used to listen when the teacher was talking. Today many students feel they have a right to ignore the teacher and have a private conversation with their friends.
Students didn't swear in classrooms or the hallways. Today some students can't talk without swearing.
Students used to say "Please" and "Thank you." Today only a few students use those words.

Under this list of observations were several questions:

Why is this happening?
Is society better when people treat each other with respect? If so, why?
Is a classroom better when both students and teacher show mutual respect?
Why does Henry Rogers say, "Good manners are one of the most important keys to success in life"?
What is the "Golden Rule"? If it's so simple, why do more people today have difficulty practicing it?
Which impresses people more -- being "cool" or being courteous?

His instructions to the class: "Please take out a sheet of paper and answer these questions. Don't sign your name. I'll collect your papers and read them aloud to the class."

He then collected students' written responses, read them aloud, and used them as a springboard for a discussion of manners. This took the rest of the period.

Urban comments: "This activity made a noticeable difference in students' behavior. In the weeks that followed, several told me they wished their other teachers would discuss good manners." An exchange student from Germany told him, "I enjoy your class not just because I'm learning a lot of American history but also because of how polite everyone is." At the end of the semester a boy said: "That manners page you handed out really made me think. Sometimes we do rude things and aren't even aware that we're being rude."

What were the features of this lesson that made it an effective character education experience for these high school students?

In my experience, most people are capable of courtesy when they know clearly what is expected of them. Moreover, the classroom is a more positive place when everyone treats everyone else with courtesy and consideration.

First, Urban took a whole class period to discuss good manners. That sent an unmistakable message: Manners matter.

He exercised directive leadership. He didn't ask students, as a values clarification approach might, "How many people think manners are important?" Rather, he designed the whole structure of the lesson to guide students to the conclusion that manners are important in school and life.

He started positively by stating his belief that most people are capable of courtesy if they know clearly what's expected.

He involved students actively. He recruited and respected them as thinkers by seeking their input.

He succeeded in getting all of his students to think about this issue by posing good questions and having them write anonymously. Anonymity gave them the freedom to be candid. About the importance of writing, Urban says:

If I want quality thinking and quality discussion, I almost always have students write first. Writing gets everyone involved. I get a much richer range of responses than if I simply posed the questions to the whole group -- in which case only a few students carry the class.

Finally, he taught this lesson on day one. Students could reflect on manners without feeling defensive, since they hadn't yet had a chance to commit the kinds of lapses he was describing. One of the hallmarks of character education is that it's proactive: It teaches what's right before something goes wrong.

Things will still go wrong, of course. It takes time to change habits:

By the end of the first month, I'm usually exhausted. It takes me that long to persuade all of my students that I really do expect them to abide by these standards. This past semester I had one kid who thought he could go to sleep in my class because that's what he did in other classes. I just kept walking over to his desk and saying matter-of-factly, "I'm sorry, Dan, but you can't sleep in this class." He eventually got the message.

Character education doesn't eliminate human nature. But by being proactive, the teacher puts a framework of expectations in place. Then the teachable moments -- the inevitable times when students fall short of the expectations -- are more fruitful, because there's an established standard of behavior to refer to and a shared commitment to honor that standard.

2. Teach the hello-goodbye rule

When you enter somebody's space, it's common courtesy to greet them. You should do the same thing with your parents whenever you come into your house.

All across the country, teachers say that many students today do not return adults' greetings. "You say hello to a kid in the hall," says one elementary school teacher, "and they don't say anything back."

Returning a greeting, like all manners, must be learned. Gary Robinson made it a point to teach his 4th- and 6th-grade students the courtesy of greeting another person and saying goodbye. After establishing the Golden Rule as his "most important classroom rule," Mr. Robinson said:

My other rule is my Hello-Goodbye Rule. When you come into the classroom, I'd like you to say, "Hello, Mr. Robinson." I will, of course, return your greeting and say hello back to you. And when you leave the classroom, I'd like you to say, "Goodbye, Mr. Robinson."

When you enter somebody's space, it's common courtesy to greet them. You should do the same thing with your parents whenever you come into your house. And when you leave a person's space, you should always say goodbye. That's just the polite thing to do. Besides, when 24 of you guys walk through that door and say, "Hello, Mr. Robinson," it makes me feel great.

3. Teach alphabet manners

Susan Skinner teaches kindergarten in Columbia, South Carolina. She has a bulletin board displaying a different manner for each letter of the alphabet. When she teaches a letter of the alphabet during a given week, she teaches the corresponding manner at the same time.

A -- Accept a compliment graciously.

B -- Be on time.

C -- Clean your hands.

D -- Do chew with your mouth closed.

E -- Elbows off the table.

F -- Friendliness to others.

G -- Good grooming shows self-respect.

H -- Hang up your clothes.

I -- Interrupt only for a very important reason.

J -- Join in and include everybody.

K -- Kindness to all living things.

L -- Lend a helping hand.

M -- Magic words: "Please" and "Thank you."

N -- Never point or laugh at others.

O -- Obey the rules.

P -- Pleasant tone of voice is a plus.

Q -- Quiet when others are working or sleeping.

R -- Remember others on special occasions.

S -- Sit up straight.

T -- Thank the host or hostess.

U -- Use your beautiful smile.

V -- Visit a friend who is lonely or sick.

W -- Watch out for little ones.

X -- "X" out bad habits.

Y -- Yawn if you must but cover your mouth.

Z -- Zip your zipper.

She says: "I've probably gotten more positive parent feedback on my Alphabet Manners than any other thing I do. Parents are very happy that their children are learning these manners in school." And by sending home a copy of the alphabet manners she's teaching in her classroom, she gives parents an unspoken invitation to do the same at home.

4. Implement a manners curriculum

Implementing a formal curriculum on manners is a way to ensure that all students in a school, not just those in a particular teacher's classroom, get instruction in basic courtesies.

Jill Rigby is a mother-turned-educator who got drawn into creating such a curriculum. An interior designer by training, she was asked in 1992 to volunteer at her twin sons' school -- St. James Episcopal Day School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She soon found herself in conversations with other parents about students' unruly cafeteria behavior. She said, "Why don't we come into the cafeteria once a week and talk to the children about manners?"

When our children act with good manners, they will elicit a positive response from other people. They will be happier themselves -- more secure, confident, and poised -- when they know how to behave.

They drafted her for the job. Soon she was doing weekly, often humorous lessons on putting your napkin in your lap, chewing with your mouth closed, and the like.

Other schools began calling the school asking, "Where can we get this program?" In response, Rigby developed her lessons into a K-5 curriculum guide titled Manners of the Heart (www.mannersoftheheart.com), now used by hundreds of schools around the country. There's also a companion guide for parents, Manners of the Heart at Home. The school curriculum has three parts: (1) Everyday Courtesies (such as smiling, saying please and thank you, playing by the rules, and saying I'm sorry); (2) Communication Skills (such as introducing someone, telephone manners, and writing thank you notes); and (3) Table Manners (such as asking for something to be passed, sitting up straight, table talk, and manners for eating out). Rigby comments:

I define manners as an attitude of the heart that is self-giving, not self-serving. The objective of our curriculum is to teach children that manners come from the heart, not from memorizing a set of rules. If respect is the foundation of how we treat each other, manners and etiquette will come easily.

Rigby has had graduates of her curriculum come back to her with stories of how her lessons in manners helped them in high school and even on dates.

When our children act with good manners, they will elicit a positive response from other people. They will be happier themselves -- more secure, confident, and poised -- when they know how to behave. They will be more likely to teach manners to their own children someday if they become parents. By their courteous behavior, they can help to create a more considerate, gracious, and well-mannered society. These are all good reasons to make the teaching of manners part of every character education program.

An excellent resource for getting kids to reflect on manners is George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviours in Company and Conversation, 110 guides to good conduct that he wrote out for himself when he was fourteen years old (available from Applewood Books, Box 365, Bedford, MA 01730).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Thomas Lickona "Teach Manners." Chapter 8 in Character Matters: How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues (New York: Touchstone, 2004): 165-172.

Reprinted with permission of Thomas Lickona.

THE AUTHOR

Thomas Lickona is a developmental psychologist and professor of education at the State University of New York at Cortland. He is the author of Character Matters: How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues (Touchstone, 2004) and the Christopher Award-winning book Educating for Character (Bantam Books, 1992). He has also written Raising Good Children (Bantam Doubleday 1994) and co-authored Sex, Love and You (Ave Maria Press, March 2003). Thomas Lickona was instrumental in development of the Center for the Fourth and Fifth Rs. He is on the Advisory Board of the Catholic Education Resource Center.

Article: The Spousal Secret

MIKE AQUILINA

The secret to being a good husband.

I hate public speaking. It terrifies me to look out on a sea of faces or, worst of all, to look out and see only floodlights, knowing that behind that glare is a sea of faces, all looking at me and probably in a disapproving way -- if they're awake.

It's something I have to get over, because God has made it clear to me that speaking is part of my vocation. But that struggle is not in my plans for the near term. Too many other vices and weaknesses are ahead of glossophobia in queue.

In the meantime I respond to speaking invitations with a form letter I call my "crucifix before the vampire" letter. It's supposed to drive away pastors and committees and conference organizers by making unreasonable demands of them. Most of the time it works.

Once, though, someone called with a plea. This was a friend, so I was already weakened: I couldn't send the form letter. He explained that he was in a jam, and he needed a speaker. I was so busy that I had no lime to argue, so I hastily agreed and asked him to e-mail me the topic.

I was busy, so I didn't open the e-mail until shortly before I was supposed to give the talk.

When I did, my blood ran cold. I put my head on my desk and groaned before turning to my wife: "Can you give this talk instead of me?"

"What's it about?"

"It says: 'The secret to being a good husband.'"

I was not encouraged to hear her laugh as hard as she did.

"Seriously, honey," I said, "you have to tell me what to say."

When she'd regained her composure and dried her eyes, she said, "Tell them the secret to being a good husband is ... chocolate." And she left me alone with my frightening task.

I typed the word chocolate on the page but got no further. So I decided to procrastinate and read the newspaper online.

Now, this was, on the surface, a very bad idea, because for me the newspapers usually spell the death of inspiration and the beginning of aggravation. But this time was different. It must have been a slow news day, because on the New York Times web site, I found a most remarkable feature.

Some clever writer had asked several famous scientists a leading question: "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?" Many answers were interesting in a nerdy sort of way, but one was a keeper. It was from David Buss, a psychologist at the University of Texas. He said that, in spite of his utter lack of proof, he believed in "true love":

I've spent two decades of my professional life studying human mating. In that time, I've documented phenomena ranging from what men and women desire in a mate to the most diabolical forms of sexual treachery. I've discovered the astonishingly creative ways in which men and women deceive and manipulate each other.... But throughout this exploration of the dark dimensions of human mating, I've remained unwavering in my belief in true love.

Profound self-sacrifice -- sustained over many years and many decades -- is what sets true love apart from mere "mesmerizing attraction" and "the desire to combine DNA."

As I read on, I was surprised and captivated by one phrase in particular, "profound self-sacrifice," which isn't in the ordinary lexicon of evolutionary psychology. Yet it rang true for me because it echoed Christian doctrine. It made sense in Dr. Buss's context as well. Profound self-sacrifice is indeed the thing that has to go beyond all barriers and boundaries, and it's most certainly something that will defy all scientific measurements.

Profound self-sacrifice -- sustained over many years and many decades -- is what sets true love apart from mere "mesmerizing attraction" and "the desire to combine DNA."

And, shameless exploiter that I am, it occurred to me immediately that my guardian angel was writing my good-husband talk for me. So I started typing with reckless abandon. No matter what my lovely wife may say, profound self-sacrifice trumps even chocolate on any list of the qualities of true love.

What's more, it's not just for husbands. Profound self-sacrifice is what being a good wife, being a good parent and being a good son or daughter are all about. So maybe the husbands who didn't want to change their lives would at least go home from my talk with advice they could preach at their wives.

Of course, I didn't need to learn marital self-sacrifice from the New York Times. It was waiting for me all along in the Bible: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her" (Ephesians 5:25-26). But even the Times must occasionally serve God's providence.

Self-sacrifice means that, for the sake of our marriages, we have to give up more than our bad habits. We need to give up ourselves, our wants and our preferences, our pet peeves and even our perceived needs. We need to make sacrifice our second nature.

The self-sacrifice must take place in an almost literal way. On our wedding day we made the move from I to we. In marriage the I must be sacrificed. So everything -- hobbies, fascinations, cars, career goals, the desire to spend an hour reading a book beside the fire -- everything in life must take on a new value relative to the good of the spouse.

Such sacrifice comes naturally to young people. We see it in all the courtship customs of the world. Men stay up all night strumming a guitar in order to serenade their beloved. The patriarch Jacob tended the flocks of his future father-in-law for seven years, and then seven more, and never uttered a word of complaint. Love inspires sacrifice. A heart madly in love demands to give itself in sacrifice.

As we grow older in a relationship, we can settle back into seeking our own comfort rather than the good of our spouse. Yet we should not let the fire die. We need to rekindle it if we have let it die, and the only way to do that is to begin to make sacrifices.

Love calls for profound self-sacrifice worked out in small details. Sometimes this will require heroism. The newspapers like to run feel-good stories about spouses donating organs for one another, and my love and yours may require such extreme forms of heroism someday. But most of the time profound self-sacrifice is more low-key.

Sometimes we'll have to stay up all night with a crying baby and then get dressed and put on a happy face for work the next day. Sometimes the greatest sacrifice will be to change the diaper as soon as we're asked -- or better, before anyone else has noticed that it needs changing. Sometimes the greatest sacrifice of all will be to arrive home at the end of the day wearing a smile -- just because we know that a smile will make the house and the evening much brighter than the weary expression that more accurately reflects our day. We want our first thoughts to be for our spouse rather than for ourselves.

In marriage we should, as much as possible, sacrifice our desire to criticize, our urge to complain or whine. Here's a little trick I learned: if I feel the need to complain, I go to a quiet place and complain to the Blessed Virgin Mary. If I can look Mary in the eye (so to speak) and still bring myself to grumble about my wife, then maybe -- just maybe -- I have something legitimate to complain about. Most times, however, as soon as I approach that perfect wife and mother -- and even before I begin to formulate my prayer -- she shows me that the fault is mine and not Terri's.

On rare occasions, of course, I'm right in my grumbling. Even then I've found it a good policy to "complain" to Our Lady for at least two weeks before lodging the complaint with my wife. In the meantime Our Lady often will rush ahead and solve the problem for me, letting Terri know about it without my help. Other times Our Lady wins me the grace to live more patiently with the situation.

Jesus offered precious little in the way of practical advice for husbands and wives, but he did have something to say about friendship, and marriage is the deepest form of friendship. He told his apostles that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend, and then he told them a curious thing: He said that they are his friends if they keep his commands (see John 15:13-14)

Many centuries ago Saint Ambrose puzzled over this line. It's not customary, he pointed out, for friends to go around giving orders to one another. So what could Jesus have meant?

Ambrose took from Jesus' statement that we should ask ourselves: What would my friend command if he or she had such authority over me? Translation for me: I should anticipate the needs of my wife and do what she wants me to do before she asks me to do it.

My desires might be very good and wholesome, but that is precisely the sort of thing that is good for the sort of worship we call "profound sacrifice." It goes without saying that we should give up immoral habits and bad things. But the Israelites offered cattle and sheep to God because they valued cattle and sheep. God is pleased especially when we voluntarily sacrifice good things for the sake of others, especially the other to whom we're married.

Marriage is a sacrament, and so in marriage we need to imitate Jesus in the sacrament of sacraments, the holy Eucharist. We need to give ourselves entirely, as he gives himself entirely. We need to live wholly for the sake of the other.

We don't need the New York Times to tell us what Saint Paul put to poetry so long ago: that true love is identical with profound self-sacrifice, and it is always the "more excellent way" (1 Corinthians 12:31).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Mike Aquilina. "The Spousal Secret." chapter forty from Love in the Little Things: Tales of Family Life (Cincinnati, OH: Servant Books, 2007): 107-114.

Reprinted with permission of Servant Books, an imprint of St. Anthony Messenger Press, and of the author, Mike Aquilina.

THE AUTHOR

Mike Aquilina is vice president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and co-host, with Scott Hahn, of several television series on EWTN. He is the author or co-author of Love in the Little Things: Tales of Family Life, Living the Mysteries: A Guide for Unfinished Christians, Fathers of the Church: An Introduction to the First Christian Teachers, The Way of the Fathers: Praying with the Early Christians, and Praying in the Presence of Our Lord: With St. Thomas Aquinas. See Mike Aquilina's "The Way of the Fathers" blog here.

Article: Should a widowed mother aged thirteen be a saint?

PAUL JOHNSON

Someone should write the life of Margaret Beaufort, as an example of how a woman of strong beliefs can survive a traumatic childhood and become a credit and exemplar to society. She ought indeed to be canonised, and I commend her cause to the present Pope, who also loves good Christian academics.

Margaret Beaufort
1443-1509

When is too old? When too young? Almost every day I hear a story of someone, at the height of his power and energy, being compulsorily retired at 60. Or there is a fuss because a girl wants to get married at 15. I recall that Lydia, youngest of the Bennet girls in Pride and Prejudice, was 15 when she ran off with the miscreant Wickham. She prided herself on the fact that she was taller than her siblings and was obviously precocious. When it came to the point the problem was not her age but getting Wickham to marry her. An underage girl is a moveable feast.

I have been reading about the fascinating case of Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509), who might fairly be described as the founder of the Tudor dynasty. She was both the beneficiary and the victim of outrageous fortune. She was, besides being a considerable heiress, the great-great-granddaughter of Edward III, and thus had a title to the throne. Indeed, she might have become queen regnant herself, and a very fine monarch she would have made. As it was, her father died when she was not yet two, and she was thus a valuable ward, passed from hand to hand among the great. While an infant, she was nominally married, for financial reasons, to John de la Pole, heir to the first Duke of Suffolk, though this required a papal bull to be valid, as they were within the prohibited degrees of relationship. This marriage was dissolved, again (I think) for financial reasons.

When she was nine, she was put in the custody of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, and his brother Jasper, who also got possession of her deceased father's lands. Edmund decided to marry her, and did so, in 1455, when she was either 12 or 13. This marriage was consummated, for she became pregnant. About three months before the child was born, her husband died. On 28 January 1456, Margaret was delivered of the future Henry VII. She was still only 13. An unprotected single mother of 13, and an heiress too, was a tempting target, and Margaret was married twice more, the second time to Lord Stanley, later Earl of Derby. At various times she was under house arrest. She was proscribed by Parliament and had her lands confiscated under Richard III, and I suppose was lucky not to have her head chopped off by him. Her son, an outlaw, was abroad. But all ended well when he won the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, being joined in the course of it by her then husband, Stanley, whose desertion of Richard III helped to decide the outcome. Richard was killed, and her son became king as Henry VII, by rights of battle to some extent but chiefly by descent through her.

Margaret's descendants, the Tudor monarchs, were a remarkable collection by any standards. Henry VII effectively ended the Wars of the Roses and gave England the stability and financial probity it badly needed. Henry VIII was the cruellest of England's rulers, and has been called "the English Stalin". But he set his mark on a vast range of national activities and institutions, from the Navy to music, and from religion to science. His brilliant son Edward died of TB before he could rule, and one of his daughters, Mary, made a disastrous foreign marriage which ruined her. But the other daughter, Elizabeth I, redeemed all by becoming perhaps the greatest of all English rulers.

Her most significant personal act was to appoint that outstanding Cambridge figure John Fisher to be her personal confessor, in 1497.

Elizabeth had a lot in common with her great-grandmother Margaret. We do not know how deeply Margaret concurred in her first unconsummated and dissolved marriage, but to be married again at 12 and then to become a mother and a widow at 13 are chastening experiences, and no joke is intended. The two further marriages which followed may have been involuntary -- we do not know. What we do know is that Margaret, far from being psychologically shattered by her early experiences, matured to become a woman of exceptional qualities and real achievements.

Not that Margaret was pushy, on the contrary. Once her son became king, she made a point of not trying to influence him, precisely because he owed his title to her: she was a woman of tact and sensitivity. His letters to her show that he consulted her on matters of court procedure, and on episcopal appointments, for she had already acquired a reputation for piety and a wide acquaintance among the clergy. The king and parliament made many grants to her, for her lifetime, of lands and manors, and she devoted almost all her considerable income to charity, living simply at her manor of Woking in Surrey. As Stow said, "It would fill a volume to recount her good deeds."

Her most significant personal act was to appoint that outstanding Cambridge figure John Fisher to be her personal confessor, in 1497. The same year, he became Master of his college, Michaelhouse. He had already been senior proctor of the university, and with the Queen Mother's support he was the leading force in the revival of Cambridge scholarship and academic drive which made it, in the 16th century, the best university in the world.

After consulting with Fisher, she founded, at both Oxford and Cambridge, what became known as the Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity. This was in 1502 and Fisher, at her request, became the first occupant of the Cambridge chair, until the King, after persuading his mother to agree to the move, made Fisher Bishop of Rochester. Her choice as his successor in the chair was Erasmus. By zeal and piety, Fisher was the outstanding member of the bishops' bench until Margaret's grandson, the evil Henry VIII, had him executed in 1535. But Fisher, in addition to his episcopal duties, remained a power in Cambridge, being elected Chancellor in 1504, and thereafter annually until given the unusual distinction of election for life. The next year, Margaret founded Christ's College, something which Henry VI had intended but never completed. She was asked by an Oxford group to refound St Frideswide's as an immense college, a work later carried out by Wolsey. Instead she turned to Cambridge again, and laid out vast sums to transform the corrupt monastic house of St John's into St John's College, a project realised just before her death. Altogether, she must share with Fisher the credit for remaking Cambridge, where she is still known as "the Lady Margaret". Fisher, appropriately, preached her funeral sermon:

All England for her death has cause of weeping. The poor creatures that were wont to receive her alms, to whom she was always piteous and merciful; the students of both universities, to whom she was a mother; all the learned men of England, to whom she was a very patroness; all the virtuous and devout persons, to whom she was as a loving sister; all the good and religious men and women, whom she so often was wont to visit and comfort; all good priests and clerks, to whom she was a true defender; all the noble men and women, to whom she was a mirror and exemplar of honour; all the common people of this realm, for whom she was, in their causes, a common mediatrix and took right great displeasure to them; and generally the whole realm hath cause to complain and to mourn her death.

I have little doubt that this eulogy was well merited. She was motivated throughout her life by strong religious impulses. Having discharged her marital duties to her last husband Lord Derby, she obtained permission to leave his side and take religious vows: she was already a member of five religious houses for women, though she died at her own manor. Someone should write her life as an example of how a woman of strong beliefs can survive a traumatic childhood and become a credit and exemplar to society. She ought indeed to be canonised, and I commend her cause to the present Pope, who also loves good Christian academics.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Paul Johnson. "Should a widowed mother aged thirteen be a saint?" The Spectator (September 10, 2008).

This article is from Paul Johnson's "And another thing" column for The Spectator and is reprinted with permission of the author.

THE AUTHOR

Paul Johnson, celebrated journalist and historian, is the author most recently of George Washington: The Founding Father. Among his other widely acclaimed books are A History of the American People, Modern Times, A History of the Jews, Intellectuals, Art: A New History, and The Quest for God: Personal Pilgrimage. He also produces brief surveys that slip into the pocket, such as his popular The Renaissance and Napoleon. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Spectator, and the Daily Telegraph. He lectures all over the world and lives in Notting Hill (London) and Somerset.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Wednesday Liturgy: Churches Dedicated and Consecrated

ROME, SEPT. 23, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: I would like to know if a church that was "dedicated" but not "consecrated" according to the Tridentine rite in 1923 may now be retrofitted with the consecration candles, since there is no distinction between dedication and consecration in the new rite. -- G.P., El Dorado, Arkansas

A: I would first like to clarify the terms. I believe that the earlier version of the Roman Pontifical did not distinguish so much between "dedication" and "consecration" as between "consecration" and "blessing" (either solemn or simple).

However, it was quite common to refer to the blessing of a church as its "dedication," and this probably originated some misunderstandings with respect to present terminology.

The present version of the Ceremonial of Bishops no longer mentions consecration but rather distinguishes between the dedication and blessing of a church.

The fundamental ceremonies formerly ascribed to the rite of consecration are now undertaken in the rite of dedication, albeit in a simplified form. Thus, rather than a union of two rites, we are before a change in terminology to describe the same rite.

Something similar happened in other rites. The liturgical books now speak of "episcopal ordination" and not "episcopal consecration" as did the former books.

The rite of blessing a church still exists. If for some good reason a new church cannot be dedicated ("consecrated"), it should at least be blessed before use. Also, private oratories, chapels and sacred buildings only temporarily set aside for sacred worship should be blessed rather than dedicated. This rite of blessing is carried out either by the diocesan bishop or a priest specifically delegated by him.

Thus, only buildings that are built to serve permanently as houses of worship may be formally dedicated.

From what we have said, I think that what happened in the above-mentioned church in 1923 was probably a solemn blessing and not, strictly speaking, a dedication or consecration.

The purpose of the consecration crosses and candles is to mark the spots where the walls are anointed during the rite of dedication. This practice of permanently marking the anointing is no longer obligatory, but the Ceremonial of Bishops (No. 874) still recommends keeping this "ancient custom" of hanging either 12 or four crosses and candles on the walls, depending on the number of anointings.

Since the walls of the church in question were never anointed, it makes little sense to retrofit the crosses and candles to symbolize a rite that never occurred.

The fact that a church is blessed rather than dedicated makes no difference with respect to the ceremonies that may be performed within it. For this reason, once it has passed into general use a blessed church is not dedicated.

There are some cases, however, in which the norms allow for the rite of dedication to be carried out in an undedicated church already in general use. There are two principal requirements that must be fulfilled in order for this to happen (Ceremonial of Bishops, No. 916):

-- That the altar has not already been dedicated (or consecrated) for it is forbidden to dedicate a church without dedicating the altar.

-- That there be something new or notably altered about the edifice, for example, after major renovations, or a change in its juridical status (e.g., a former chapel being ranked as a parish church).

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Complications of 2 Forms in 1 Rite

ROME, SEPT. 23, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Pursuant to our reply on the difficulties of combining both ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman rite (see Sept. 9), we received some very interesting comments and clarifications.

First of all, several readers, using different sources, confirmed that it is legitimate for an instituted acolyte to fulfill the duties of the subdeacon. The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei officially confirmed this disposition in Protocol 24/92 published on June 7, 1993.

Several sources pointed out that even before the reform the subdeacon could be substituted with a seminarian who had received first tonsure (admission as candidate or religious profession in the present system), if there were insufficient ministers present for a solemn high Mass.

This substitute subdeacon does not wear the biretta or maniple. Nor is he allowed to perform those functions that involve touching or purifying the chalice.

A Belgian reader questioned the practice of using priests to serve as other ministers. He writes: "In your discussion in your column dated Sept. 9 you refer to a practice in the Roman rite which has persisted for several centuries -- and even in some places till today. That is, having men ordained as priests (or even bishops) dressing and acting in a liturgical celebration as if they were in a 'lower order.' This seems to be, despite the constant usage in some places and circumstances, a serious abuse of the sacrament of orders.

"To use an example, to ask a priest to act and dress as a deacon and/or a subdeacon is like asking a butterfly to act as a caterpillar or even as a chrysalis. It is obvious that there is a certain continuity in the individual butterfly from one stage to another 'more-developed' stage -- but to 'go backward' is impossible. I am well aware of the arguments which are used in the Roman rite to justify the usage, but it still seems to be 'stretching the theology' of the sacrament, practically, beyond recognition of the true separation of the orders. It should be added that this practice is unknown in our sister Churches in the Eastern half of Christianity.

"My question beyond stating the 'facts on the ground' is: Why is this (seemingly abusive) practice still permitted, and even encouraged in some quarters, within the Roman rite?"

This is a very interesting question. I would be very hesitant to use the term "abuse" for a custom that was and is still practiced in the extraordinary form.

Its use in the ordinary form is for all practical purposes limited to the occasional use of two cardinal deacons serving the pope in some solemn ceremonies.

Otherwise, a priest, even if he sometimes substitutes a deacon, never wears a dalmatic. A bishop sometimes wears a dalmatic under the chasuble as a sign of the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders.

I would suggest that the use of priests to undertake the other clerical roles in a solemn Mass arose historically as a practical solution to a real difficulty.

Unlike the Eastern Churches, the diaconate and subdiaconate disappeared as permanent ministries in the Latin Church after a few centuries and were imparted only to candidates for the priesthood who exercised the office for only brief periods of time.

Nevertheless, the liturgical functions performed by these orders were considered as necessary to the solemn celebration of Mass.

If we keep in mind that concelebrations had also become practically extinct in the Latin rite, then the combination of a lack of available deacons and subdeacons, together with a surplus of non-celebrating priests, led quite naturally to the priest's taking up the role of these ministers.

At the beginning having priests fulfill these roles was probably not seen as adding solemnity to the rite, but as the practice grew it quite likely came to be seen in this light. In some cases, such as papal and episcopal Masses, serving as deacon and subdeacon even became something of a privilege reserved to high-ranking prelates.

Among arguments that could justify the custom would be the principle that he who can do more can also do the less. The butterfly analogy is not entirely adequate for although there is continuity between the different stages, the break is not quite as radical as when the butterfly leaves the chrysalis behind.

Thus even though the deacon has his proper place in the hierarchy and represents, among other elements, the gift of service in the Church, this aspect is not extinguished if the deacon later becomes a priest; rather, it is assumed in his new role.

That said, however, our reader has a genuine ecclesiological point. In the liturgy it is best that each order fulfill its proper liturgical role whenever possible as this best reflects the Church as an assembly in hierarchical communion. This is probably one reason why the fact that the ministries of deacon and subdeacon were habitually carried out by priests is almost never formally acknowledged in the Roman Missal. At best we can find an occasional, indirect recognition of the situation on the ground in some norms and decrees from the Congregation of Rites. For example, there is the norm that says if one of the ministers is a priest and the other a deacon, then the deacon fulfills the office of deacon and the priest that of subdeacon (1886 Ceremonial of Bishops 1, XXVI; Decree 668 of the recompilation "Decreta Authentica" of the Sacred Congregation of Rites). This norm also serves to show the importance of each minister carrying out his proper role.

The practical difficulty of the unavailability of specific ministers persists in the extraordinary form and it is probably necessary to continue using priests as ministers if solemn Mass in the extraordinary form is ever to be celebrated outside of monasteries and seminaries. A permanent solution to this difficulty would probably require some fairly major changes such as instituting the permanent diaconate for this form also.

Any such proposal would be premature at present but might not be excluded in the long term. It is to be hoped that the habitual presence of both forms will eventually bring out the best in both of them.

Catholic Metanarrative

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Prostitutes Will Enter the Kingdom Before You: Gospel Commentary for 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Article: Paul, Apostle of Christ Jesus

Who was this man who turned the world upside down?

Article: 'Human rights' vs. basic freedoms

A timely intervention has prevented the cancer from metastasizing, but aggressive treatment is still needed.

Article: The Seven Deadlies Revisited, Part One: Envy

I was sitting in an unfamiliar church somewhere in Connecticut last weekend, watching one of our teenagers fidget throughout the homily.

Article: Taking the Time to Act Like Christians

What I witnessed that day was one of the most remarkable moments of Christian reconciliation I am likely to ever see.

Article: Teach Manners

Manners are minor morals. They are the everyday ways we respect other people and facilitate social relations. They make up the moral fabric of our shared lives. They need to be taught.

Article: The Spousal Secret

The secret to being a good husband.

Article: Should a widowed mother aged thirteen be a saint?

Someone should write the life of Margaret Beaufort, as an example of how a woman of strong beliefs can survive a traumatic childhood and become a credit and exemplar to society. She ought indeed to be canonised, and I commend her cause to the present Pope, who also loves good Christian academics.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Wednesday Liturgy: Churches Dedicated and Consecrated

Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Complications of 2 Forms in 1 Rite

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